Heroes Don't Take Faustian Bargains
by ghoul-lishly
Summary: After his encounter with the Hero Killer Stain, Izuku Midoriya experiences some tumult in his life and perceptions. He knows All Might withstands mental bombardments— but Izuku isn't so certain he has the resolve to ignore his own unsettling pondering. A story where post-Hero-Killer arc, Izuku experiences a paradigm shift into instability. A Villain!Deku origin story.
1. Inclination

Izuku Midoriya had been having nightmares of undeniable countenance: manic eyes dropping to a low, sharp face, features taken to like wet clay with a blunt-edged shovel, a snake tongue slithering from razorwire lips and stale, yellowed marshmallow teeth. Stain's lips cracked, his smile widened, and his eyes narrowed to mean slits as his knives carved the Adam's apple of Izuku's throat. It was a dream, some dusty part of his brain knew. It didn't mean the hot breath on his face wasn't any less _real._

If he could scream, he would do it, but his mouth was filled with cold air that made no noise when he sobbed pitifully and begged for mercy. Stain's face lowered to his, the knife sunk into his throat, and his teeth clicked slightly as he hissed, like a machine would hiss during cool down. His pupils had shrunk to _dots,_ and Izuku saw _stars,_ and the only thing stopping him from inhaling his own viscera was Stain's psychological anchor unto him.

"What gives you the right," he slurred, "to determine good from bad? You're just like the rest," his tongue drooped to Izuku's cheek and licked a trail of blood. His body seized. It was like Cementoss had made a bed for him. Somehow soft, but hard, immovable, unyielding, and a tragic reminder of what he was: quirkless, incapable.

"Look at yourself. You thought saving your _wannabe_ friends, break your _wannabe_ body, and recite All Might's speeches like they're your own makes you worth something," Stain squatted over him. Izuku wailed, but not a sound nor syllable slipped. "Are any of the stupid thoughts in your head even original?"

A knifepoint pricked his scalp. "This society is broken. Our heroes are facades. I can appreciate one thing about you," he gargled a bit, breath rasping as All Might's would when he leaned over faculty lounge couches, "you _believe_ it, at least. So _noble,"_ his voice broke, as did Midoriya's arms, his legs, his fingers— like he'd fought against Kacchan, or All Might, or Todoroki— for the first time, he could hear his own screams.

The world narrowed to the breadth of a width between Stain's chapped, personal holy war-carved face, and his own startled breaths. A strand of his green hair lilted in Stain's inhale.

 _"They_ don't deserve the noble. The so stupidly noble," if Izuku tried hard enough, it was like he was watching from his phone, lips pursed as he stared at himself. "Are you gonna make a difference in the melting pot of _shit?_ Paaaaandora," he gargled, "trying to be the sole hope in the box. Your ideologies are of such purity, Deku, that it is inevitable they will tarnish. High and mighty naivety doesn't protect you from the greatest agonies. Defend your friends, and you'll end up the Dutch boy," he paused, body aflame with motion, scarves and hair blowing in ethereal wind, "plugging up the dike with your finger. Don't think your peers are so virtuous as to not be with the sludge."

Deku vaulted out of bed with a start and a muffled scream, before immediately slapping his own palm to his mouth. The walls of his mother's apartment were thin. He could hear Inko Midoriya murmuring in bed and tossing in her sleep. _"Hiroshi,"_ he heard, before her comforter swallowed her murmurings.

He felt sticky spit on his hand, knit his eyes, and inhaled sharply before slowly dropping his arm. His tongue was bleeding in a few places— he'd gnashed it with his teeth during the nightmare. Swallowing the coppery saliva, he rolled over, pressed his eyelids closed and let out a weary sigh. _One… Two… Three…_ seconds passed. Fatigue had been swallowed by Stain's greedy tongue, leaving Midoriya frozen with anxiety.

"I'm not going to sleep," he mumbled to himself, reaching for the smartphone charging from the wall and gently unplugging it.

Wincing as he was blinded, he scrolled through his channels of text history, sighing sharply before his breath and gaze snagged on _'All Might.'_ A sickly weight settled on his sternum, the tiny icon bubbles of All Might's terse messages accompanied by his icon: a kindly picture where his muscle form held Izuku close to his massive pectorals. The sun glinted in fractal lines across his teeth and bled into lines on the visor of Deku's costume. Izuku's heart lurched.

 **All Might ۹(ÒہÓ)۶:** Young man, thank you for speaking with Tsuragamae Kenji.

 **All Might ۹(ÒہÓ)۶:** Young Iida and Todoroki also have my thanks.

 ** _Izuku Midoriya:_** Thank you sir! I didn't really have a choice but… I don't know. I wanted resolution for the Iida family, and all the other heroes!

 **All Might ۹(ÒہÓ)۶:** The police are an important regulatory body for Japanese quirk users.

 **All Might ۹(ÒہÓ)۶:** A necessary annoyance.

 **All Might ۹(ÒہÓ)۶:** That being said, you will be a great hero. I am incredibly proud of you.

Eyes pinched, he glanced to the tiny analog clock glinting on the topmost bar of his window. _Three thirty-seven a.m._ Izuku sighed. Both at himself, and at the tingle in his fingers and the goosebumps running down his scarred forearms and spine. If he had a teleporting quirk, he'd find All Might and scream the nightmare into his brain telepathically.

Kacchan was a bully. He kicked Izuku down to the barebone scrapes of his knees and the squeaky sobbing of a kid, a baby, really. Explosions licked his fingers and personality with a lupine ferociousness, that is to say he was the wolf and Izuku was the rabbit until All Might forced him into something more. Stain, contrastly, was homicidal. A murderer who greedily drank cold blood as he spilled it with his other fist, drinking richly from the cup of proverbial sin.

Kacchan had tormented him for the greater majority of his years. Stain had tormented him for ten minutes. The level of self-doubt was disparaging, really. Bakugou hadn't even grazed the surface of sudden inhibition Stain had managed to highlight in a snapshot of time. Izuku felt like his soul was screaming, and he in turn whimpered, lips pressed thin.

Quietly, he prattled out a message to All Might. It lingered in the 'send' bar, cursor blinking, but his thumb didn't even dare hover over the delivery button.

 ** _Izuku Midoriya:_** does what i did make me a villain

"Quick, Izuku," he whispered to himself, "figure it out. Think. What _did_ you do?" The immediate answer to his tumultuous mind was: _hero work._ The utter antithesis of villainy, and yet the stupid lilting filament of tongue, his own blood babbling from chef's dices, malignant eyes that bled fear into a body like cancer— he couldn't shake it.

He flipped to a notes application on his phone, filled with errant cell numbers and months-old to-do lists. Pursing his lips, Midoriya quietly created a new page, brushed a palm frond of sprightly green hair from his eyesight, and began typing. These machinations weren't reserved for the books of hero notes he kept on a shelf perpendicular to his mattress— twelve pristine volumes and a thirteenth charred one— no, this was for himself. Those compositions were for _Deku._ These were for _Izuku Midoriya._ It was a startling realization that the line between those two people was a twisted dichotomy both obvious and incredibly, incredibly blurred. Deku swallowed.

 _The world presents hero work as an object of purity, but I'm not so sure anymore. Stain makes, uh_

 _Stain said_

 _I somehow told myself that morality isn't all clean in this encounter. Heroes have their own way of being villainous by changing the value of what it means to do good. Ms. Midnight, the R-rated hero, she uses sex appeal, and Mt. Lady, she_

 _All Might does interviews_

 _What does it really mean to be heroic?_ _Can I decide what is right and wrong?_

 _Is there really a right and wrong?_

Izuku closed the note and quietly saved it, toes curling. The title was "mine." Period and all. Despite the odd sense of finality, something in him eased, while another part of him squirmed before being squished adamantly with a swelling hope in his chest. He glanced leftward in his bedroom.

Even in the din of darkness, he immediately recognized the sculpted smile of his hero plastered on the wall, twin prongs of hair standing sentry to a gallant, tanned fist rocketing towards the viewer of the poster. He remembered cherry blossoms, and trees, and sobbing his heart out into the filthy sidewalk while his nails picked up dirt as he unconsciously reached for his no, not hero— that was a gross understatement— but _idol._ He remembered feeling a joy that was like being in the eye of a hurricane. God, he was so happy.

He tossed his phone rather carelessly onto the mats lining the floor, ignoring the woody clack as it landed. Warmth ran through his body, and in the high of the reverie he forgot entirely to send his query to All Might.


	2. Enflame

_"Dekuuuuuuuu!"_ Ochako trilled, running up to Izuku Midoriya with a bird-like chirp and heated, rosy cheeks. "How was your internship? I learned _so_ much in mine!" Uraraka puffed her cheeks and made a noncommittal pump of her fists, bouncing in the air. Izuku couldn't help but smile warmly, almost wanting nothing more to wrap her in a hug and forget the horror of the Nomu and Stain existed for a moment.

He dug his heel into the sidewalk, offering a sidelong glance to the calligraphy U.A. buildings, flash of yellow in one of the windows. "I learned a lot in mine too, Uraraka," he replied, right hand scratching between his shoulder blades before his fingers knotted themselves in the phthalo green hair on the back of his head. "I worked with the Gran Torino," he laughed nervously, "you were with… Gunhead, right?"

Uraraka doggedly nodded, her bangs bouncing on her forehead. "That's right," her voice gained a somber cadence, gaze growing steely, "I was with _the_ Gunhead."

"Doesn't he specialize in armed martial arts?" He reached out and poked her shoulder, expecting a characteristic squeal and instead got a darkened glower. Izuku swallowed, retracted the finger, and let his hand slip into his pocket and wrap comfortingly around his phone. "I-I mean, Uravity," he teased her hero moniker, "its good you're getting out of your comfort zone! Martial arts training is great!" He felt suddenly loose-lipped, and winced. Bright red shoes scuffed on the cobblestone courtyard path, and filled the heavy silence with clumsy noise.

"You know I'm joking around, Deku," Uraraka giggled, tucking her thumb into nervous fists and gnawing subtly on her lower lip. "I _did_ learn a lot though," she pondered, rolling her head for a moment, letting her bangs tickle her cheeks.

"That's so great," he tried to sound supportive, though there was something utterly weighed down in his posture.

The slump of Izuku's shoulders into a dull parabola brought a worried crease to her lips as she nibbled on them. His walk wasn't the purposeful militaristic forward stomp through the verdant, flower-crusted courtyard it normally was, ducking under the gleaming leer of the U.A. Academy entranceway with a reverence. Ochako Uraraka had always found some of her classmates to drone, trod mindlessly as they walked the winding stone carpet towards their heroic destinies. Sometimes she wanted to puff her cheeks and scream, both because they clogged walkways with their ponderous plodding and because it seemed a stark under-appreciation of the U.A. institution. Really, the bumblebee fliers— dull and clumsy— failed to appreciate the grandiose promises of heroism, the indomitable charitable spirit of what it meant to be a savior. Deku had taught her to reap the benefits after, a thought that twitched her lips into a tiny smile. She felt a sense of determination just thinking about it.

These were, of course, machinations she kept quiet. Deku wasn't a plodder, which meant _something_ had gone wrong. A tinny bell's _ting_ sounded in her head and reverberated in her rib cage, sending her heartbeat murmuring. The familiar toll of instinct.

"How was your internship, Deku?" she prodded gently, giving him an expression she prayed silently was maternal. "You said you learned a lot. I've never heard of the Gran Torino," Uraraka's voice held an air of confession, and her fists balled tighter, "so I hope he was really cool."

Izuku perked up, like he was jolted with a live wire. "He really was! He had this jet quirk that made him _super_ fast, even if he was kind of a geezer," he laughed a bit. "And I got a much better grip on _my_ quirk thanks to him." He gave his hands a furrowed stare, as he milled about before classes. "I'm really excited to test the limits of what I can do, I think I'm going to be a much better hero now! There's all sorts of things that I think I'm much better at, but mostly my control," he sighed anxiously, "I know it isn't realistic to use a quirk like mine when I keep hurting myself, but…" Izuku trailed off, knowing he was beginning to ramble. The sun began glittering in harsh lines over the visage of the school building, and he was squinting rather ridiculously, mouth agape with the clogged thought.

"Buuuuuut?" Uraraka rolled her wrist, gesturing for him to continue.

"But I think… I'm doing much better now. I've sort-of tested out how all the things I've learned perform, too," he swallowed his contradiction to her, any prior joy melting to a stoic mask, "and they're pretty effective."

The same weight from a few nights ago came back crushingly, and he wobbled on his feet. Izuku's mouth gaped and his shoes scuffed, face instantly a trio of shades paler, knees quaking, before he clenched his stomach in an instant and steeled himself. He felt so ill, so sick and broken.

Uraraka's mouth was poised to ask a question of his health, before she was interrupted promptly with a stream of overeager puppy classmates. By then, color had returned to Deku's cheeks and he'd been swept off by Kirishima, Kaminari, and a few of their other friends, leaving her in the dust even when Iida gestured rather aggressively for her to join the huddle. Izuku put on a brave face between the soldier throngs of his classmates, Uraraka catching tentative glimpses of his expressions as she lurked on the outskirts of the conglomerate. Flashes of his faces as he talked in the bull's eye center of the horde, no evidence of the instant of weakness he'd offered her a glimpse of. It was a snapshot of memory in her mind taking on a cryptic sort of quality: she wasn't certain of its realness.

"Deku!" she called out, trying to reach her hand over the group. "De— Izuku," she trailed off, shuffled backwards, and circled round towards the school. Izuku reached helplessly towards her once, before resuming his conversation nervously. More weight settled against his chest, and Midoriya took one flittery inhale before smiling back to his other friends.

Uraraka glanced back as she walked trepidatiously towards class, flickers of Izuku catching her line of sight. Always smiling Deku, laughing Deku, embarrassed Deku, intimidated… masks. Facades. There was a deadness to his eyes that terrified her, stiffened every muscle in her body, before she darted off inside to find a faculty member. Izuku craned his eyes over the crowd to catch sight of her, but no, Uraraka had darted off. The group grew in her stead, 1A, 1B associates joining the horde, talking fanatically about their internships.

"Hey man, did you see that video of the Hero Killer?" Mineta and Kaminari leered over a phone screen, Kirishima idly peeking towards it, Tokoyami and Jirou catching half-gazes. Todoroki gave Izuku a passive look, before walking towards class in that ever pragmatic march of his, steely as always, and Iida appeared _homey._ Deku's mouth felt dry, and he felt like he was swallowing a sandpaper-coated slug before lurching towards the group in a half-melting walk, like a dripping icicle. No one paid much mind, the dialogue of Stain was overpowering.

 _"This society is overgrown with fake heroes,"_ the video started. Izuku had watched it in his police station once, but he had slammed the laptop shut and pushed it away with his bare toes as he waited for interrogations. He was there, he didn't need to see it again…

The crowd _oo'ed._ Midoriya shuffled towards the source of the sound, a bestial panic taking over his movements. His classmates started an angry secondary dialogue of _'hey!'_ and _'watch it, Midoriya!'_ as he moved forwards.

Iida surveyed the crowd from his great height, brows furrowed at the sight of his friend panting heavily as he struggled towards Kaminari. A tiny trickle of mental questioning began to flow and babble, brook thoughts of a mind normally raging like a river. Foremost was one he voiced aloud.

"Midoriya," he muttered to no one but himself, "I think something may have gotten into you."

His authority as Class President made him a valid candidate to try and improve Izuku's health he thought… or so he questioned. _Heroes analyze situations before they form a battle plan, at least Engenium did,_ his fists curled, _that way their motives are sound of heart and encourage the least casualties._

In that moment, Izuku Midoriya himself was contrastly having a very different panicked set of thoughts. _They'll all become villains! The video has been pulled down from popular websites to prevent things like this,_ his lungs squeezed, like a great pair of hands vacuuming out the air, _why are they playing it? What is the point? They'll start to sound just like…_

 ** _"Hey!"_** Izuku screeched, having reached the eye in a hurricane of people. "You," he panted, "y-you shouldn't watch that."

Kaminari snorted. "Hey Midoriya," his face fell lopsided, eyes twinkling— he seemed genuinely happy to see him. "What's up? Been a hot minute since we've last chatted. Everyone was talking so I couldn't really hear you, man—"

"Turn it _off!"_ Izuku lunged for the phone. "Its villain propoganda!" He realized One for All had brought an unhealthy glow to a pale face, and he was surrounded suddenly in an infused ball of silence before he inhaled sharply, tears pricking in the corners of his eyes, and tried to quell simmering thoughts. Silently, Iida shuffled closer. _I have to seem rational,_ Izuku thought to himself, swallowing back tears, _otherwise they'll never believe the power Stain's words have. They're my friends, so I just have to act… friendly._ He settled on a characteristic nervous smile.

Simultaneously, a scuffling pair of footsteps shuffled slowly towards the class. Heat licked his fingertips, and a scowl sat primly under crimson eyes. His uniform, per mandate, was wrinkled and followed an approximate single-digit number amount of the school's dozens of dress codes, and the shock of blonde hair atop his head could cut paper into cutouts, as always. "If something is fucking happening," he called through the suffocating silence, "you better let me in on it."

For once, Izuku ignored Katsuki Bakugou's intimidating scowl. "I-I'm just saying that with what happened, there's been a spike in crime. And the League of Villains obviously is getting braver, with all the N-Nomu's dropped in Hosu City," he held his hands up defensively, before his left flitted up to tangle in the back of his hair, "I just want to make sure we're being respectful to all the fallen heroes, y'know?" His cheeks burned, and Kaminari snorted.

"Midoriya, you're always here to set us straight," he laughed, "just as much as our Class Prez," he jutted a thumb to a stiffening Iida. "But I gotta break it to you dude, I'm pretty sure everyone's already seen it. We're all heroes in U.A. high!" He suddenly enthused, "we'll make sure to pay respects, but more importantly, that no scumbag walks around like that again. Right guys?"

 ** _"Right!"_** A flurry of enflamed fists roared into the air.

The group, in an instant, dissipated. Bakugou stared at Deku unblinkingly, before slamming into his shoulder as he shuffled to class.

"Shitty Deku," he glowered.

Izuku sighed, his phone buzzed, and he glanced downwards, pausing to feel numbness. He felt the weight of Atlas, all of Earth pressing atop him. The weight of the world's greatest future hero. His knees almost buckled.

 **All Might** ۹ **(Ò** ہ **Ó)** ۶ **:** Young man, today I need to talk to you about your quirk.

Iida looked back in a split-second to his friend, still panting under his breath, before shaking his head with a regality and marching to class with the Class President brand gait. Deku was the All Might of their group, no matter how anyone spun it. His morals were the clearest, cleanest, and most brightly glowing— with the actual All Might in his corner, the funk would shatter, he was sure of it.

Meanwhile, Izuku felt a growing, lilting sense of loneliness. He waited for the courtyard to empty, and then walked solitarily into school.


	3. Choir for the Soul

Uraraka Ochako, though Izuku Midoriya did not yet know it, was correct in her perceptions: U.A. Academy was not for _plodders,_ and foremost, there was something oddly wrong with him. The willow tree lilt of his shoulders, like bricks slid across the planes of his clavicle, and the decidedly dreary clouds over jewel-tone gaze— he swayed on his feet as he marched sedately to Aizawa's homeroom class. Izuku reflected on the fact that, if he had an energy meter like a videogame, he'd already be drooping from canary yellow to flame orange. His phone felt heavy in his hand.

He passed his homeroom class slowly, didn't stop to peer in, and ducked around a series of blue-gray corridors to weave methodically towards the faculty lounge. Izuku stared firmly at the ground, lips worried into a thin crease. _All Might is in there,_ he kneaded his thumb and forefinger together, rubbing an invisible worry stone, _maybe I'll talk to him about… no._ Midoriya's brows furrowed, and the trickle of heroic determination which had swept away the dense uncertain fog began warming his body. _These questions are so stupid. Why am I like this?_ It was an odd dichotomy which he settled on uncomfortably.

Despite that thought, he picked up the speed, and skidded towards the faculty lounge door. He swallowed, glanced down to the scrubbed tile— so clean he could see the whisper of worry on his face— and then back to the yellow-oak door. It took three solid seconds before he raised his fist, knocked thrice, and heard the grumbled nasal of All Might's voice.

The door slid open before he could reach for the handle, and Uraraka gave him a warm smile as she ducked out of the lounge. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyebrows thin and risen in high arcs. He started, and the pair exchanged a nervous pair of synchronized, wilting half-waves and terse greetings.

"H-hey, Uraraka," Deku stammered, shuffling backwards. Her cheeks blazed a little brighter, she knit her lips, and glanced down.

"Hi Deku," she practically whispered, before scurrying off.

He swallowed. _She seemed weird. Then again,_ he grabbed the door before it swung shut, _we haven't really talked in awhile. Everything will be normal during lunch, probably,_ he sighed nervously, scratching the back of his head and casting a rearview glance towards the receding girl, _then again, she wasn't in Hosu with Todoroki and Iida. She still thinks Endeavour caught the Hero Killer. Maybe… Maybe I'll tell her—_

"Young man," started All Might from inside, eyeing him under heavy set brows and wide, uncanny black eyes, "please, sit down. I have a pot of tea," his long fingers grasped the teapot's handle, before pouring steadily into a pair of cups, "please drink some with me. It isn't really my normal style," his lightning bolt bangs lilted as he tilted his head, watching the stream dribble the last drops of tea into the cup, "but principal Nezu recommended it for these kinds of conversations. He's paternal at heart, so I trust him, even if he has a habit of rambling."

"Y-yes, sir," Midoriya pressed his back against the door until it clicked shut behind him, and then sat across All Might.

All Might's baggy suit pooled in his elbows and knees, wrinkling across the pectorals and crinkling into a mess at his abdomen, straight pinstripes a salad of squiggles and bumps, disguising his injury. He was careful and methodical when he twisted his ribs, gingerly avoiding the proximity of the purple-red mess of an impact crater. Izuku winced, and covered up the expression with a long, slow sip of tea.

"You wanted to talk to me about One for All," Midoriya started, brows furrowed as he set down his cup.

"That I did, young Midoriya," he sighed, did the same, and lounged across the back cushions of the couch with a groan— he'd quirked his ribs funny. "You know that One for All is passed down from user to user, right?" He closed one eye, peering into Izuku's soul with the other.

"Yeah," he mumbled, shoulders stiffening up to his ears and fingers gripping the knees of his pants intently and tightly. He didn't make eye contact with All Might's piercing blue pupil, like ice which bled into the soul by sheer osmosis. "I sort of surmised that when you gave it to me. You've said it before," he broke away a hand and scratched the back of his head.

"Well, I suppose I need to tell you how it came to be. But first, my injury," both eyes were suddenly open, and the glare and glaring expectation was obvious: All Might expected a terse, electric line of eyesight. The whole room suddenly felt on fire. "You know it was five years ago when I received this injury, but what you don't know is that it is your fight too." All Might, the All Might Izuku knew, would break away and massage his temples, or inflamed, jump into his muscle form with a burst of steam, but this All Might was intense and unyielding. A stone wall, granite, sheer, unbroken to erosion. "His name is All for One."

Izuku's spine jumped, like he'd been ran clear through with an electric wire. He could hear the tinny rattle of his own breaths. "A-All for One," he tasted the name. The syllables were sickly sweet, like rotting fruit.

Sagely, All Might slowly began to recall the origin of Izuku's quirk, the same supple electricity which made his veins sing like bells, his body scream with power. The pain he'd endured was like mortar to brick, the egg-in-microwave silly metaphor he chanted to himself slowly building muscle out of resin instead of fiber, bones of steel instead of stone. As he went on, Izuku had to drink more tea, and whether he knew it or not, was pressing against the back of the couch so adamantly he hoped he'd phase through it. There was a tremble to his fingertips, and he quashed it by shoving his hands into each armpit and hoping the world stopped spinning for a second.

It was a split moment in time when he felt the same familiar slur in words as All Might continued his story, like tongues running over knife scarlet-spattered blades, and blood moons in black nights, shattered visages mumbling, rambling forward, his blood curdling into cheese then stone… _Stain…_

"Our quirk may be a gift from a villain," All Might exhaled, "but it is no doubt a thing that shouldn't come under the thumb of a criminal or ne'er do well again. You have to be careful with this power of yours, young man," All Might leered forward.

Izuku nodded slowly. _What would I do before?_ Izuku screamed to himself mentally, lower lip almost breaking into a quiver. _What would_ ** _I_** _do? I'd… I'd be serious. Cool. Determined. I want to be a hero, god damn it!_ His face fell into one of firmness. He _wanted_ to be a fucking hero. What on earth was with the abstraction between _himself_ and Deku lately? They were the same person! Izuku wanted to scream, but the black inky space of All Might's firm watch didn't yield any room for air.

"I have to fight All for One," he breathed, "he can steal any quirk and gift it to others… _that's_ probably what the Nomu's are," Izuku's voice was grim, but his eyes looked almost on the verge of tears. "I'm just…"

"It's a long story," All Might said, tone conciliatory, "one that has been continuing since the birth of quirks. All for One's longevity is something of a marvel," he admitted, scratching the back of his head, "but ultimately, there are two forces in this world, Izuku Midoriya," All Might winced, blood trickling quietly from the corner of his mouth as he rested his elbows on his lap, and leaned forward with steely intent. "You know them both already, I'm sure."

Izuku's mouth was dry with uncertainty. He offered a nod, but his mumbling habit had transcended into crossing channels of mental thought. _Good and evil aren't really real, but they might be, and I just don't know, or maybe I'm going crazy, and maybe I don't deserve All for One, maybe_ ** _I_** _need to pass it onto someone better before All Might—_ ** _SHUT UP._** That train of thought skidded to a halt before mortality was touched with a ten foot pole.

"Justice and injustice," All Might let the words hang stagnant. Golden light pooled in the corners of the lounge, and froze the space between them in sun. "All for One is an injustice against humanity. A plague. No one person should have the power he does," All Might's teal specks for eyes glanced down to his balled hands. "He gets to choose his own order. But we get to stand against it, young man. One for All lets us do that, and it is for this reason that it is so important you keep the most sacred of secrets."

He glanced to Izuku. "The Hero Killer had abhorrent methods," he started, "but he wasn't entirely wrong. Heroes are not free of corruption. You need to understand the responsibility of One for All's secret, and the weight of the quirk and the title of Symbol of Peace. I believe in you, young Midoriya," his gaze pierced into his soul.

The harsh sunlight framed the jagged, broken edges of All Might's silhouette in liquid ambrosia, his face firm set in stone and the tiniest of encouraging smiles, the same determined _I am here!_ ringing in his posture and dark matter sclera. It was so hard to believe he was as real and pure as he _was;_ someone like that was truly existent as Olympian and great as _he;_ and that the tiny jade speck that was _himself_ — stupid Izuku Midoriya— would one day live up to it. Surpass it, in his words. He settled for awe, and tucked away the insecurity for later. Standing in the shadow of All Might was like being in the sun. Izuku didn't move for a long while, nearly crying at the sheer joy of being in _his_ presence, being able to have _his_ approval. It made the past weeks seem like a foggy reverie, the same visions as though he were staring out the window in class. Utterly not-real.

Izuku had heard so many things in the span of a half-hour, but there were four phrases which clanged in his mind after the fact, frying pans clapping together. After the meeting, he typed them all in the same note on his phone as before, his soliloquy to himself. Notes to quirkless Izuku Midoriya.

 _There are two forces in this world, injustice and justice (?)_

 _All for One is a plague, because he chooses his own order_

 _The Hero Killer is right_

 _All Might believes in me, Izuku Midoriya_

His spirit was clouded. Everything held such a new level of weightiness, and for the first time he almost disagreed with his idol.

But the thoughts dissipated as he read the last comment over and over, and he let his soul sing.


End file.
